Monday, February 13, 2006

Trevor Lautens Election Wrap UP

Trevor Lautens begins his 2006 election rap up http://www.nsnews.com/issues06/w012206/014306/opinion/014306le1.html with “So the West wanted in.” He must be recycling old material from elections past. The Liberals won the most seats in Vancouver and NDP the most seats on the Island. Both are West of Alberta, and Prince George. Politics in Canada is no longer dominated by regional animosities the way it once was. If there is a geographical split it is more rural/urban than Western Canada/Eastern Canada. The Conservatives took no seats in urban Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. This was a trend that was readily apparent last election too. In other words the “west” died before it ever got in.

Finally, a Lautens article would not be complete without an attack on the country’s pro Liberal media; needless to say, the fact all of print media, with the exception of the Toronto Star, endorsed the Conservatives was not addressed by Lautens.

“The Liberals tried to make much of some supposedly scarifying Stephen Harperstatements in past speeches in the United States. But what bubbles up to themedia surface can be remarkably selective. I can't recall hearing this reported:Stephen Lewis, as I found in an idle Internet moment, spoke to the CanadianCouncil on Social Development in Winnipeg in 2004. He told attendees that he hadspent the previous week in Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Washington and NewOrleans, and went on, ‘Precisely, all of the pre-Paleolithic Neanderthals youcan imagine at a variety of speaking events.”

I was wondering the same thing myself. Why was the media not publishing old Stephen Lewis speeches dug up by the Conservatives? After all, Lewis has only been away for politics for 28 years now and was not running in last month’s election.

Speaking of old quotes, Silver brought up retired Carolyn Parrish during the election. I guess she thought the Liberals made the Conservatives look bad when they kicked her out of office. You see, serial Canada basher Stephen Harper has said “Any country with Canada’s insecure smugness and resentment can be dangerous” http://www.stephenharpersaid.ca/ and was elected Conservative party leader. Conversely Parrish called Bush and company names and was eventually dropped from caucus. The straw the broke the camel’s back was her ridiculing none other than Paul Martin. http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/11/18/parrish041118.html

She had no reason to fear. Parrish comments have recieved more media attention over the years than Harper's. The same goes for Ducros' "moron" comment. The press cares little about what Harper has actually said. Indeed, in two successive elections now the Liberals have dug up and leaked to the press constroversal speeches, this 2004 http://www.ccicinc.org/politicalaffairs/060103.html and this in 2006 http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/leadersparties/harper_speech.html . In a surreal turn that speaks volumnes about poverty of news coverage in this country, during the last election some news organization decided that the fact that the Liberals leaked the speech was itself newsworthy. I guess it did not dawn on these organizations that reporting such an item as news damaged these organizations' reputation by revealing that they were unaware of the speech for all this time and that they only discovered it because of the digging done by a politcal party.